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Up and atom! German woman fails to stop the Large Hadron Collider

A German woman who feared the Earth would be sucked into oblivion in a black hole has failed in her court bid to stop the work of the world’s most powerful atom smasher.

The higher administrative court in Muenster, western Germany, rejected her claims, ruling there was no evidence the work of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) posed a danger to public safety.

“The plaintiff … was worried that the experiments could produce so-called ‘black holes’ which could eventually lead to the destruction of all life on Earth,” the court said.

The woman had failed in a previous attempt to stop the work of CERN in Switzerland at the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe.

There have been a number of people trying to get the Large Hadron Collider shut down over the years. They mostly seem to think, like this woman, that the LHC will be able to create a black hole big enough to destroy the Earth. While the LHC might in theory be able to creature miniture black holes, they will be so small and only last for a few nano-seconds or so.

Here’s an article detailing why it’s impossible for the LHC to destroy the Earth.